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The Roc

Ililiw nîpâ-kîwekopan e kî natawešket sâkahikanihk. Mitâwakâm pimâtakâskôpan. Ot eškan piminikâtahamokopan. ᐃᓕᓕᐤ ᓃᐹ ᑮᐌᑯᐸᓐ ᐁ ᑮ ᓇᑕᐌᔥᑫᑦ ᓵᑲᐦᐃᑲᓂᐦᒃ᙮ ᒥᑖᐗᑳᒻ ᐱᒫᑕᑳᔅᑰᐸᓐ᙮ ᐅᑦ ᐁᔥᑲᓐ ᐱᒥᓂᑳᑕᐦᐊᒧᑯᐸᓐ᙮The man must have been heading home at night after hunting beaver on the lake. He was walking out on the ice and would have been carrying his chisel over his shoulder.

This story was first published in 1881 in Horden’s A Grammar of Cree Language under the name “An Indian’s Adventure.” Although it was first published in an Anglican alphabetic orthography and provided with an interlinear translation, Horden described it as a story first “written by a native in the syllabic characters…” that was included in the grammar so language learners could get a sense of “the Cree idiom and the arrangement of words in sentences.” As a traditional story originally written by a native Moose Cree-speaker in the late 1800s, it is perhaps one of the earliest examples of a genuine Cree language âtayôhkân. In this blogpost, the alphabetic orthography has been modernized and provided with its equivalent in syllabics. The story was also retranslated into English for the benefit of non-Cree speakers. Finally, a few minor adjustments and corrections were made to the text to facilitate its reading. This story was published on this blog on June 24, 2015.

4 thoughts on “The Roc”

Yes! In fact, stories of these giant birds are known throughout Cree country. Please click on the Âtayôhkân tab at the top of this page to get more information about the origin of this story in particular.

Cree stories sometimes convey warnings concerning traditional taboos, but usually do not convey anything that can be termed a “moral.” They also typically contain explanations, often comical, of why things are the way they are today. For instance, this version of the story of the Roc is a shortened version. But longer versions include an explanation of how humans got to have an intergluteal cleft and interlabial sulci. As you can imagine, there is some humour to that version of the story.